I reckon Charles is Mr Pitkin.

Potentially. Only speculation though. Would be for individual Football Federations to decide, I would think. Some Commonwealth Federations may decide to follow the UK's lead.

I did wonder about starting a thread "When Simon Jackson eventually dies" but I suppose there would a single response "Would anyone notice?".

I think TV scheduling would be decided on the hop. Broadcasters would assess and react to the public mood, just as the Royals did themselves when Diana died.

Say what? I'm pretty sure the plans have been rehearsed to the nth degree over many years!

Perhaps BBC2 should be used for normal programming with a mix of BBC1 & 2 programmes in the evening to retain a sense of normality for the minority that aren't bothered.

ITV will just use Corrie and Emmerdale as a proper break for the newsroom and ensure less to catch up except if Funeral falls on a weekday then be postponed that day anyway unless was a cheery episode that lightens the mood of the nation.

C4 & 5 probably will just go back to normal after a few hours and provide an alternative on funeral day.


The digital channels will just run as normal after a day and on funeral day, join one of BBC, ITV or SKY News to show the funeral service before running back to normal programming as long as light and entertaining.

TheEngineer will.

Is that you Prince William?

Yeah,

Maybe the BBC won't bother showing the funeral live - they'll do a MOTD style highlights programme on BBC Parliament at 11pm the next day. Maybe Andrew Neil could present it in his pants or something - you know, just to lighten the mood. I reckon the BBC One will probably just show that Only Fools and Horses episode where Del Boy falls through the bar instead. I mean that was the funniest thing ever on tv - and we'll all need a laugh. ITV can do a You've Been Framed marathon, just to give people who don't like Only fools some choice.

Of course the funeral would be shown live on BBC and ITV but after the funeral of Princess Diana, both opted for light entertainment in the evenings and this time, BBC1 will probably just roll out MBB from 9:00 till whenever they decide to join the news channel for the night. As for early evening, probably go for something like Frozen then a two pre watershed comedy repeats.

ITV would on the other hand, roll out random entertainment one offs that can be repeated whenever like those music specials as long as the music isn't depressing. YBF would be early evening unless they aired repeats of the chase or tipping point celebrity specials just to create a sense of returning to normality without being full on normal.

Mrs Brown's Boys on the same day as the funeral.

I very much doubt it, but at least you made me laugh.

Maybe ITV will have Celebrity Mr & Mrs, with Charles and Camilla as one of the couples.

No I would imagine that the previous poster is correct.
Not one of the broadcasters would have found out exactly what the plans are, the timescales that it will all take, the notification required to give a date for the funeral to allow the guests to arrive from all around the world at a venue to be decided nearer the time.

They will not have thought to ask what the suitable camera angles are, nor where the microphones will be placed, the cabling and the links back and forth.

Therefore they won't have rehearsed anything at all. Ever.

That is why forums like this are needed, so everyone else can be made aware that otherwise they will have to do it all on the fly.

They do regularly rehearse the news breaking though (about once a year) because last time they did it some junior journalist in India, who had access to the unaired BBC rehearsal being done live tweeted The Queen had died.

How would an "unaired" rehearsal be received in India?
One thing that would always be done is to prevent that sort of rehearsal getting out of the building to stop exactly that sort of thing happening.

I don't know- but presumably if you are in the business, and in the BBC's studio in India (wherever it is) then it is possible to see what is going on in the news studios in London.

How many days off will we all get?

last time it was none

I very much doubt there's twelve days' worth of tribute programming in the can, so the main channels' coverage will mostly be rolling news, the number of hours of which, they'll assess viewers' appetite for on a day by day basis.

Anyone reckon that during the mooted 12 days of national mourning, ITV will show The Queen film as a tribute although its highly irrelevant because of being about her reaction to Princess Diana's death alongside their documentaries of her and the royal family?

The really silly thing is that 99.9% of any news coverage will be of people saying how sad they are, how she meant so much to them, how life isn't worth living without the queen blah blah blah on a loop, the other 0.1% will be them talking about what'll have to happen etc. In reality within an hour you're pretty much just into repeating the same stuff 493 times before the end of the day, which is literally just "wahhhh the queen is dead, wahhhhhh".

There's not much actual news or relevance you can get days later when it comes to the queen dying, it's just repeating stuff from days ago.